The End of Hedgehog's Dilemma, Part II: Hedgehog Messiah
by gorgeousshutin
Summary: Following the events in Part I, the World is now caught in the throes of Instrumentality. With the POVs of non-Shinji characters further explored, and Kaworu's reason made known, the EoE Movie takes on a whole new twist here.
1. Chapter 1

NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

 **Notes:** Yes, it's the too-long-delayed update to the TEOHD series. My thanks goes to those who continues to show interest in this choppy, highly-experimental fic so long after Part I's been out. Can't promise how fast this gets updated since I'm drowning in work these days, but I'll try to carry this one through to the ending.

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

The boy's known world, having since fallen apart, was now beginning to blur.

One moment, he was seated in Unit 01's cockpit while also falling into Nagisa Kaworu's open arms; the next, he was getting drawn into an endless expanse of smooth, organic whiteness fair as albino flesh . . .

'This is the Rei in your heart . . .' said his mother's disembodied voice, originating from neither here nor there, ' . . . your very hopes and dreams . . .'

'What do you wish for?' asked Rei, her voice echoing right in the deep recesses of his own mind.

"I want a place to return to . . ." replied Ikari Shinji with the honesty of a very young child, with his bleary eyes slowly closing. "Somewhere . . ."

* * *

"What the hell is going on now?" asked Asuka Langley Soryu, feeling at a complete loss.

The theatre she and the NERV gang were in - previously somewhat normal in appearance except for its improbable size - now was suddenly displaying a vast multitude of vivid scenes from all around: on the ceiling, upon the walls, down on the floor . . . basically, on all surfaces but the rolls of seats themselves. All the separate scenes were parked against each other in their hexagonal frames, which vaguely reminded the Eva Pilot of the Control Room's stylized emergency signals.

The term "hive mind" occurred to the girl then, raising (no doubt, metaphoric) goose bumps on her skin.

"Looks like the Room of Guf is resonating with the Seed Body now that Instrumentality at last begins," said Ritsuko, observing the abrupt change overtaking their surroundings with clinical calmness. Asuka saw how, standing right beside the Dr., was a semi-lucent apparition of an older woman who shared a family resemblance with her. Under Asuka's awed gaze, she could be seen slowly sinking into the hexagonal "scene frame" right underneath her feet; that woman was not the only one: Kaji-san, too, was sinking down into a scene.

"Looks like we, who've made the transition earlier on, are to go first in the queue to merge with the Collective Consciousness," said the man(?), smiling faintly to himself during his descend. "I'll be seeing everyone on the other side." He then disappeared completely into the hexagon.

Misato, who had avoided looking at Kaiji-san all along for reasons unknown to Asuka, now turned towards the non-human of their group – the humanoid Seventeenth Angel, currently fitting into the NERV-centric group with unsettling ease. "So what happens now, Nagisa?"

"Now?" The Angel smiled his infuriatingly unreadable smile. "Now is where everything begins."

"Meaning?" pressed the NERV Major, determined for some straightforward and detailed exposition.

"As some of you might have already realized, we are all currently inside what once was the Seed body known to a select few at NERV as Lilith.

"Once was?"

"With myself - who bears Adam's spirit - now having fused with Lilith via Ayanami Rei's invitation, this hybrid seed form now acts as host to the Collective Consciousness of all Lilin souls –- those who had since crossed the line, and those who are about to follow." As the Angel spoke, the massive "main screen" at the front of the theatre showed Unit 01, its exposed core punctured by the Spear of Longinus, transforming into what looked like a cross-shaped tree cupped between the white giant's massive palms. "Such is Instrumentality –- the final evolution of the Lilin Race unto its maximized perfection. Ayanami, having been complemented by Lilith, has full power over Instrumentality's mechanism; I, who is of Adam, shall act as her guide, and be the 'will' to back up that power."

Asuka, listening on from the side, found herself hopelessly lost. "What are you people talking about-" She got cut off by a hand - Misato's hand - grabbing onto hers right before merging into her flesh. Just like that, info she herself had never acquired started filling her mind like data inputted into file, updating the Eva Pilot to full knowledge over her highly fantastical current situation.

"I see now . . . Collective Consciousness, huh?" Detaching herself from Misato's "flesh" –- no doubt just a visual presentation of the woman's consciousness in this strange place/plane/space –- Asuka faced the Angel with her best solemn, hard gaze. "Tabris, tell me how to reach Shinji."

Smile deepening at her demand, the Angel pointed down at the "floor" right where Asuka was standing. Glancing down, the girl blinked at seeing a hexagon showing what looked like a children's playground, where a familiar-looking young child was building a sand pyramid.

"Shinji . . ."

"That, is but one of the facades making up the totality of Shinji-kun's consciousness, Soryu-san."

Before Asuka could ask what the Angel meant, she was already noticing how the other hexagon frames surrounding the one she stood upon also had scenes "featuring" the boy in various places and situations: lying on his bed at Misato's Apartment, riding the Tokyo-3 Transit, lounging around the bridge over the Eva's cage . . . etc, etc.

"Shinji-kun . . ." murmured Misato, appearing perturbed as she gave the scenes a once-over. "But which one of these is actually the current him at this moment?"

"Or, could it be that they all are?" commented Ritsuko. "A person's mind can be all over the place at any one particular moment."

The Angel gave her an appraising nod. "All these, together, reflects the totality of Ikari Shinji's consciousness at this very moment," he said, confirming the scientist's suspicion. "They are windows to his soul, so to speak. Whether someone can reach him through them, however, depends on what weight they carry in his heart." He glanced down and at the hexagon he was standing upon. "I already have Shinji-kun right here with me."

Asuka took a look at just what kind of scene the Angel was referring to . . . and flushed red in the face.

The hexagon showed what looked like the personnel's bath area at NERV, where Shinji was already naked and drenched.

"What the . . ?!" Asuka was further outraged by the sight of the Angel now sinking down into the "Shinji bath scene". "Y-You . . . HEY! Where'd you think you're going?!"

"To him," replied the Angel, matter-of-factly. "I've chosen this particular angle where I believe he could be most easily reached." Having sunken downwards past his knees, the Angel's wardrobe had likewise changed, such that he now was naked but for a small towel wrapped around his bony hips. "You can always follow suit if you'd dare to." He spoke with a noticeable twinkle in his smiling red eyes, one that had Asuka clenching her trembling fists.

"You . . . freak!" Snarling, Asuka charged forward intend on doing physical violence to the Angel regardless of their strength discrepancy . . . but found herself held back by Misato.

"Nagisa-kun, you're trying to agitate Asuka even now," pointed out Misato with a disapproving frown. "Why?"

"Somehow, the Angel is trying to goad her into fighting him over Shinji-kun," pondered Ritsuko. "But why?" Suddenly, the sharp-minded woman gasped softly as though something had occurred to her. "Wait, could it be-"

"Asuka!"

Jolting at that familiar voice, Asuka turned to see her mother, looking disheveled from where she was hurrying down the seats' aisle and at her.

"Asuka, dear, please let Mama explain-"

"NOOO!" recoiled Asuka, the memory of her mother literally "haunting" her father unto madness still fresh in her mind. And, before she knew it, she had already stumbled upon the hexagon containing the "bath scene", and was rapidly getting sucked down into it. "Oh . . ." The girl flushed with mortification at being confronted with the bathing, naked Shinji her soul now was getting pulled towards. "Oh no . . . I ain't ready to deal with this right now. . ."

"Soryu-san." The Angel, since having incorporated himself into the bath scene –- as a fellow male pilot cleaning up beside Shinji, it seemed - offered her a cat like smile. "Ready or not, here is the best chance you've got to reach Shinji-kun, before Instrumentality is to go into full swing, and it gets even more difficult for specific human minds to find each other."

Teeth clenched - and already feeling the steam of the bath upon her skin - Asuka glared daggers at the brazen Angel. "Tabris-"

"And, a word before we go further," purred the Angel, now bathing shamelessly besides the likewise towel-lapped Shinji. "When this is over, only one of us will get to be in the same world with Shinji-kun."

Asuka blue eyes widened at his statement. "What . . . do you mean?"

* * *

"Asuka!"

Under their watchful eyes, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, looking like a disheveled cross between a mental patient and a vengeful ghost, crawled frantically at the "bath scene" her daughter had disappeared into, but appeared to be blocked by a barrier of sorts. She eventually got pulled into an adjacent hexagon by forces unseen, disappearing within.

Left on their own in the Room of Guf, the two top female personnel of NERV observed the increasing number of people entering the hexagonal scenes cluttered about, all the while pondering their own options.

"There are really only two possible outcomes for Instrumentality," mused Akagi Ritsuko, who had remained largely in the know throughout the lead up. "That Humanity remains united within the Collective Consciousness, or that some or all people regain their individuality while continuing on living as separate organisms upon reality . . . upon this Earth." Her brows creased in apparent bafflement. "The Seventeenth Angel, who purposely let his human vessel get killed by Shinji-kun back then . . . he probably did so knowing he would again become powerful after fusing with this Lilith-hybrid. He is obviously trying to alter Instrumentality's outcome . . . but towards what ends?"

"The Earth is getting ravaged by SEELE's brutal method in forcing Instrumentality as we speak," muttered Katsuragi Misato as she eyed the scene on the Room's main screen, where a massive gape could be seen remaining upon Japan after the Black Moon's elevation into the Stratosphere. "How Strange . . . shouldn't Japan have collapsed from the damage done to its structure by now? Surely, for an area so vulnerable to seismic volatility . . . plus an Angel is having major control over Mankind's future. I should be more worried . . . but somehow I'm not?" Ceasing, she shook her head blearily. "It's like when I'm hung over; think my mind's blurring as we speak."

"Mine too," admitted Ritsuko, observing the numerous hexagons lined up on the floor. "Looks like we too have to enter our consciousness into one of these mind-worlds if we want to hang on to our individuality."

"Let's," agreed Misato, already stepping up and into a scene she picked at random. It looked, to the watchful Ritsuko, like a messily kept college dorm room with a dated vibe . . .

* * *

 **To be continued . . .?**


	2. Chapter 2

**The End of Hedgehog's Dilemma, Part II: Hedgehog Messiah**

NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

 **Note:** This is a very short update that I've slipped in during a small break. Hope it will still please.

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

Into smoky steam-wetting her skin and blurring her vision-she fled, scampering upon wet tiles, slipping under showering mist; anything, anything just to get away from the one hot on her heels.

"Asuka! You're misunderstanding Mama!" The woman-if it can be called that-cried out from behind her. Much to Asuka's horror, she soon found her arm grabbed. "Please, if you'd just let Mama explain-"

SLAP!

It was only after the act, after she saw the handprint reddening the other's face, that Asuak realized she had struck her late mother soundly across the face.

"A-Asuka . . ." Stunned, her mother slowly raised a trembling hand to her face. "Asu-"

"Just SHUT UP!" screeched Asuka, pushed over the edge by everything that had been happening to her up till now. "You destroyed my father! My FATHER! He wasn't a good parent but he was all I had back then, back when you were too INSANE to even take care of me!" She felt tears streaming out of her eyes on their own accord, and had to restrain her hands from wiping at them. "Just give me a little more time, maybe a few years, and I would've been able to maybe get close to him again. But now, but now . . .! I've lost everything, and it's all because of you! You selfish MONSTER!"

Her mother's current unbecoming state-disheveled, wide-eyes and in tears-cut at her vision like sharp glass, forcing the girl to face away.

"Why'd you have to come back to life?" whimpered Asuka, hands to her ears with her eyes squeezed shut. "Everything was fine back when you were dead and gone."

". . . I . . . see . . ." Her mother's disjointed voice-still reaching her hearing-was soon followed by weary, slumping footsteps that grew fainter by the moment, signaling the woman moving further and further away. "I'll . . . go . . . I'll . . . again . . ."

Asuka had, by now, collapsed into a curled-up-ball on the wet, slippery floor. "I could've kept on loving my image of you then," she mumbled on, brokenly, "instead of being forced to face your true, ugly . . . self"

". . . I see,"

This new voice, boyish and familiar, jolted Asuka into opening her eyes again and scampering back up. Her wet, murky surroundings had gained some clarity by now, revealing itself to be a bath area at Headquarters-the huge NERV logo on the LED screen facing the tub-with lights turned low.

A naked boy sat with his back to her at the edge of the pool, hunched over. His scrawny back was hunched over as though in agony or despair.

"It's just like when I started the cello," he murmured as though to himself. "I thought that if I came here, I could find something . . ."

"S-Shinji?" Asuka would have gotten up toward him, if not for the sight of his nakedness. "Hey, you-"

"But I was wrong."

At Shinji's cynical statement, the screen showing the NERV logo displayed what looked like the interior of a hospital ward, with the POV focusing on a girl on a bed, with a boy standing to her side. Asuka saw, to her own horror, that the girl was herself in a comatose state-likely how she had been during those days before her final battle in Unit 02-and that her shirt was torn open and she was only wearing panties. The boy-clearly Shinji-was watching her, unzipped, all the while urgently fiddling with his-

"Ikari. Shinji." Asuka felt as though a blow to the stomach had knocked the air out of her, so shocked was she at what she was witnessing. "You sick, impossible bastard . . ."

"There is nothing to be gained from hard work," continued this naked Shinji seated at the tub's edge, his voice marred by an audible tremor, "from giving trust, from making sacrifices . . . because all people are takers, and none have the capacity to give." Shinji's arms, with bony elbow jutting out to the sides, appeared to be holding something to his groin, and was slowly moving it up and down. "I was right to be afraid of making contact with people, of touching people . . ."

Asuka noted, to her growing dread and revulsion, how there was some kissing, suckling noises barely covered under the sound of flowing water . . . a sound that seemed somehow in tune with Shinji's arm movement.

 _'What's he . . . ?'_

"But even the act of avoiding others turns out to be unbearably painful," moaned Shinji. "Because being alone is also painful." His arm movement sped up, revealing his fingers to be clenched around what looked like a mope of silver-gray hair.

Hands, pale and fine-boned and easily recognizable to her, slipped into view clasping onto Shinji's bony hips.

"You . . ." Asuka found herself getting choked up by tears; no, not tears of anger, but of _rage._ "You . . .!"

"Living is a punishment in its entirety . . . so there's no point in denying myself from doing what feels good, is there?" From his profile, he could be seen glancing sultrily, needily down upon the one pleasuring him from down under. "Now that you're back, make me feel good . . . Kaworu-kun."

The girl saw "Kaworu-kun"-aka Tabris-glancing right at her as his mouth and hands did things that had Shinji arching back his head in apparent rapture. Fists clenched, she stomped up and towards the two.

The Third Child finally noticed her approaching. "Asuka-"

"Enough already!" snapped Asuka, yanking his head back by the hair. "I get so pissed off whenever I look at you!"

The Third Child's eyes, hazy with lust or unshed tears, glanced slowly up and at her. "Because I'm like you . . . ?" Down below, the Angel's red eyes gained a twinkle as he continued to make the human boy "feel good".

Livid at the insult, Asuka pulled hard on Shinji's hair. "Don't compare me to a perverted, useless piece of SHIT like you-"

Click.

The sound of a door knob turning-the very sound that had repeatedly haunted her nightmares since childhood-froze Asuka in her spot. Slowly turning her head, she saw, to the side of the bath area, _that door_ swinging open upon _that exact doorframe_ , revealing _that same woman_ hanging by the neck on that _same damned rope_.

"Mama!" she screamed, already rushing towards the door. It vanished on her as the surroundings started to shift, becoming malleable. "Mama! I don't mean it! I don't mean what I've just said!" She clawed madly and futilely at what was at once a wall and an empty space. "I-I'm sorry! I'm so bad! I'll be a good girl! I won't ever be bad again! Come back, Mama! I'll-I'll pilot EVA! I'll become smart! I'll . . . I'll! Just come back! " She stumbled forward, into a hard wall and into nothing. "Don't leave me behind again! I'm so sorry! Mama! MAMA!"

"Mama . . . ?"

Amazingly, even at such a time, Asuka still somehow managed to hear Shinji's weak murmur. Shakily turning her head, she notice how Shinji-somehow clothed again-was crouched at the EVA bridge that had appeared in place of the bath. In his hand was a bloodied cross pendant that she recognized to have belonged to Misato, and he was glancing down upon it in wistful bafflement.

Behind him, the very space contorted, such that what looked to Asuka like an old room-complete with an old style fan and messy laundry hanging to dry-came into view. Within that messy, dated room were two naked, familiar-looking young adults caught in the throes of copulation, with the female partner staring over and at Shinji with saddened eyes.

"I wasn't able to become Shinji's mother after all . . ." mumbled a college-aged Misato, currently undulating under the wiry bulk of a younger Kaji . . .

* * *

 **End Chapter 2** update speed to depend on feedback ;-)


	3. Chapter 3

NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

 **Note:** And here I go again . . .

 **Chapter 3**

* * *

"You people. . ."

Her mind in turmoil, Asuka-who just lost her mother again, this time by her own fault-watched numbly the lusty, revealing romp between the two adult guardians she had in this life.

"Mmmm, let's do it," moaned Misato in this slutty, porn star voice-one that Asuka knew, even at her age, to be affected and catering towards male arousal.

"Again?" drawled Kaji. "Aren't you supposed to meet your friend at school today?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, Ritsuko. It's okay, we still have time . . ."

"We've been cooped up here for a week now . . ."

"Yeah, but I think I'm getting the hang of it . . . so come on . . ."

"Kaji-san . . ." whimpered Asuka, taking in the alien sight of her crush/father-figure flexing his bare buttocks over this naked woman who had also since grown endearing to her almost managed to make her forget her current troubles. "This is . . . you two are . . .?"

"Back then, I probably just did this to prove that I existed." Misato's voice permeated the air from all directions, like it was the voice over in a scene. "This time, I'm doing this . . . I think . . . to hold onto my individuality within Instrumentality."

"Smart choice," nodded Ritsuko, appearing at current age from where she was leaning cross-legged against a desk. In stark contrast to Asuka, the woman observed her life-long friends have sex with clinical coolness. "Instrumentality blurs the individual will. By fixing oneself upon an important memory-and reinterpreting it to keep it current—the individual mind finds something to hang onto."

"Ka-ji," Misato could be seen murmuring and kissing at the man's earlobe. "Did I ever told you how much you remind me of my father?"

"Katsuragi . . ." murmured Kaji. On his back, another man's torso could be seen poking out and arched backwards in apparent ecstasy.

"I-I can't goddamned believe this!" Having had enough, Asuka got up to her guardians, standing over them with crossed arms. "Don't you people have more important things to concern yourselves with at a time like this?! How idiotic! This . . . this does nothing of value to our situation!" Kaji glanced over at her with bedroom eyes, the sight of which enraged the girl even more. "You too, Kaji-san! Snap out of it already! You two are just being lonely grownups comforting each other with empty physical acts!"

"We all want to feel needed," commented Ritsuko. "Even if only physically."

"I feel wanted," said Misato, glancing up at Asuka with eyes pleading for her understanding, "and that makes me happy."

"Oh, for-" Asuka stomped a foot hard on the floor. "You idiots! It's just a way for you to self-delude yourself into thinking you're worth something!"

"This is . . . Misato?"

Sometime during their conflict, Shinji had wandered over into this room. Bloodied cross pendant in hand, he watched the fornicating Misato as though she had suddenly grown a second head.

"She's doing something . . . like this?" he wondered aloud-though his mouth has remained shut far as Asuka can see-in apparent disgust.

Asuka turned to bark at Shinji. "And we don't need your hypocritical input either, perv boy!"

Shinji appeared oblivious to her, so fixated was he on Misato's wanton state.

"Yes, this is also me . . ." drawled the woman, looking Shinji in the eye while getting rocked under Kaji's strong body. "This is the image revealed by the crossing of our hearts . . . the part of me that Shinji-kun doesn't know about." Her feet, toes curled in pleasure, waved up in the air as per Kaji's rhythmic movements. "Reality does involve pain, but you just have to deal with it." She grabbed Kaji by his lean hips, slamming it against herself. "It's part of being a grown up."

"You'd know what it means to be a grown up," grumbled Asuka, before throwing her head back to let out a long, deep, sigh. "Aaahh . . . I wonder if I'll end up acting like Misato when I grow up?"

"All Lilins are like Katsuragi-san in the end."

Asuka whirled to face the reappeared Angel. Now clothed and dry, he could be seen embracing Shinji from behind; his slender arms were taut with possessiveness.

"Always feeling pain in their hearts, always needing meaning for their existences to justify that pain," murmured the Angel against the side of Shinji's neck. "Even when they want to make a genuine connection, the skin gets in the way, separating one soul from the other." His pale hand clasped itself over the cross in Shinji's hand. "Before Instrumentality, before this moment of Collective Consciousness, physical acts truly are the only means for hearts to attempt connection, however futile the gesture may seem."

Shinji eyes, still on Misato, welled with tears; Asuka's jaws squared at seeing  
his fingers now were entwined with Kaworu's.

"Say . . ." she stepped up to in front of Shinji, "wanna kiss?"

The boy's eyes widened as though finally noticing her presence again. At the same time, parts of the shabby room Misato and Kaji was sexing in began to change, such that it now resembled their Tokyo-3 apartment.

"You mustn't!" warned Misato, again looking thirty as she hurried to dress herself in her NERV uniform; Kaji now was nowhere to be seen. The tactician had her wary gaze on Kaworu, still wrapped around Shinji like a pale growth of parasitic vines. "We still don't know what the Seventeenth Angel's intentions are: hasty actions like yours-"

"Or, are you afraid?" pressed Asuka, trying further to goad this uncertain-seeming Shinji into action. From behind him, the Angel's pale lips could be seen curling in a smile.

By the time this was over, only one of them would get to share a world with Shinji, the Angel had said; if this was true, then she would damn well made sure that the idiot stayed in her world under her control.

"It's not something kids should do . . ." Misato sagged as her words fell on deaf years. From beside her, Ritsuko patted her shoulder in some sign of support.

"Okay." Forcing herself to ignore the Angel's daunting presence, Asuka took a further step up, such that she and Shinji were face to face. "Here goes . . ." She leaned forward . . . and stopped at seeing what looked like pity in the other's eyes.

"Asuka," the boy's lips quivered as though in acute anxiety. "Are you doing this with me to try and forget about your mother?"

* * *

 **To be continued . . . ?**


	4. Chapter 4

NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

 **Note:** Apologies to **Seeking Professional Help** for the slight delay in this update, as FFnet still was going down periodically from my end.

 **Chapter 4**

* * *

In his eerie but still very physical corner of the world, Keel Lorenzo faced the SEELE monoliths as he awaited his salvation with fingers crossed.

/"Latest report: the Geofront and the EVA Series are approaching E Layer, and still rising."/

/"EVA Series' self-impale mode to execute in five minutes."/

/"Unit01 Pilot's ego disintegrating at the ever increasing rate of . . ."/

Keel, who had been listening to the reports rapt all along, suddenly found his attention straying as he saw, through his visor, a brief glimpse of something that put him on alert.

He saw the late Kaji Ryoji, who stood side by side with what looked like the equally dead Dr. Katsuragi. There appeared to be innumerable humanoid shadows looming behind the two. They were gone almost as soon as he spotted them, disappearing without a trace into the surrounding darkness.

Old heart racing against the surrounding cybernetic components keeping it at work, Keel hurried to check for playback via his visor. The men and their shadows were nowhere to be found in the recording.

Kaji Ryoji, triple agent. Katsuragi, top scientist. They were but two of the innumerable people that he, as the head of SEELE, had killed throughout the long falling of years to further his own agenda. Keel realized then how he must be getting old, and with age came the unavoidable softness of heart and spirit. For why else would he be hallucinating about such insignificant pawns during this most important and glorious moment to humanity-and most importantly, to himself?

"Soon . . ." murmured the powerful old man to himself in self-reassurance, ". . . soon . . ."

"Are you doing this with me to try and forget about your mother?"

Shinji's question, coming so unexpectedly, impacted Asuka like an abrupt slap. Here she was, _offering_ herself to him, trying to goddamned _SAVE_ him from the strange angel. And he just had to bring _this_ up now? "You . . ."

"I saw you crying out for your mother, earlier on," he explained. "We're sharing the same consciousness now, and I can kind of see glimpses of what's in your mind now." There now was this hesitant, almost hopeful glint in his dark eyes. "Just like me, you also got problems with your parents, don't you, Asuka?"

"YOU-" Asuka would've belted Shinji one, there and then, had she not noticed how the Angel, still latched onto him from behind, now was reaching around to undo the buttons on his polo shirt. "You . . ."

The boy's own hands, in the meantime, were fumbling at the front of his jeans. "It's okay if you want to use me this way, Asuka. I . . . I need the same from you too." Red in the cheeks, he licked his lips in acute neediness, before raising a tentative hand towards her face. "Let us help each other. I-I want you to be my first-"

"What the HELL do you GODDAMN TAKE ME FOR?!"

Asuka's screech had Shinji's hand freezing in midair.

"A-Asuka?"

"You don't understand anything!" hissed the girl at this boy who left her thoroughly disillusioned by being eager over all the wrong things, for all the wrong reasons. "Stay away from me!

". . . I do understand." Shinji's hand, awkwardly lowered, twitched like a dying insect. "By doing adult things, we can help each other forget all the unhappy things, so we may go on livin-"

"No you don't, you IDIOT!" Asuka kicked Shinji, whose hand convulsed. "You really think the self-absorbed, pervy likes of you can understand me!? You think you can 'help' me just by doing this . . . this dirty thing to me, huh?" Her eyes narrowed with rage-laced disgust. "You'd really believe I'm that _desperate_ , huh?"

"Asuk-"

"You're godfrigging ARROGANT!"

She would have charged Shinji there and then, would have used all the combat techniques she had acquired through her training in Germany in beating up this slimy, disgusting male, had she not been held back by Misato.

"Asuka, this is Instrumentality, there is no buffer," said the adult. "Shinji-kun is behaving this way because he can't phrase things as tactfully as he could in real life-"

"Meaning this is what he's REALLY thinking with that little head of his!" snapped Asuka, struggling against the NERV Major's grip like a mad cat. "He REALLY wanted to take advantage of my situation with Mama! And he would really do it with anyone and anything like a dog in heat, even with . . . even with . . . _THAT!_ " She pointed a foot at the Angel behind Shinji, still watching her with that condescending smirk; his amorous hands had never once left Shinji's body.

"Ikari Shinji!" the hurt girl snarled at the boy with as much hurtful hatred she could muster up. "YOU can't POSSIBLY understand ME! Not with that filthy mind of yours, you get that through your stupid head!"

As she gasped from the heat of her own anger, Asuka saw, to her unsurprised, how yet another familiar figure had showed up in this scene. It was Rei-who, according to the info Misato had transferred directly into her mind earlier at the Theatre, now controlled this Lilith/Adam hybrid they entrapping them all-entering the living room, with Pen-Pen following from right behind. Asuka struggled out of Misato's hold at seeing her.

"Why, if it isn't the mastermind behind all this craziness," she snipped, redirecting her anger at the Commander's favorite. "Even though you don't really got a mind or a will to call your own, do you, Wonder Girl?"

Ignoring Asuka in that infuriating way that was signature to her person, Rei stepped up and towards Shinji.

Asuka gritted her teeth at the diss. "Look, I don't care what order the Commander had given, but you'd better let us out of this Seed Body or Collective Consciousness or whatever right this instant-"

SLAP!

"Wha . . ." In front of her stunned eyes, Rei had struck the annoying but immensely powerful Seventeenth Angel across the face.

"You're letting the pettier aspects of your Lilin side get the better of you," she spoke to the Angel-whose face got tilted to one side by the impact-in an icy tone. "Antagonizing the Second while bewitching Ikari-kun through inappropriate sexual conduct will not help us accomplish our goal, Brother."

The Angel, so nasty towards Asuka, bore Rei's physical and verbal attack with surprising good grace. "Guilty as charged, Sister."

"And what exactly is this goal you're now sharing with the Angel?" asked Ritsuko-still present in this scene-of Rei, expression solemn.

Rei spoke without turning towards her superior at NERV. "To evolve Ikari-kun-and in doing so, the entire imperfect humanity-through Instrumentality."

"Evolve humanity through Instrumentality?" Asuka inhaled sharply. "You people are sounding about just as wacked as what those SEELE loons!"

"Nagisa, you've already mentioned something like this before," pointed out Misato, picking up PenPen as though by habit. "It's time for you to be more specifice. Just what does you and Rei's version of 'evolving through Instrumentality' entail, specifically?"

"We intend to rid humanity of a crippling condition known as the Hedgehog's Dilemma."

"Huh?" Asuka blinked at the alien term. "What the heck was that?"

Ritsuko filled her in. "It means the dilemma where people needs to make contact with each other out of the need for companion, yet also holding back out of fear of being hurt by other people."

"That's _it?_ " Asuka's bafflement quickly turned into outrage. "That's the reason why the Angel and Wonder Girl are starting the Third Impact, and letting everyone get killed in like the most gruesome manners _ever?!_ All to get over some stupid fear of just INTERACTING with each other?!"

"Don't you harbor this same fear as Ikari-kun and everyone else here?" asked Rei, and Asuka found herself tongue-tied.

To make it worse, the Angel also decided to pipe up just that moment. "Doesn't the fear of making contact with other cripple you in that same way it does him?" he asked. "Isn't the resulting misunderstanding what caused you to lose you mother a second time? Surely even someone as willfully blind as yourself cannot deny in your hearts of hearts that you, like all other Lilins, have the need to pass the hurdle of the Hedgehog's Dilemma?"

"How dare you . . ." Livid at getting salt on her most grievous wound, Asuka stomped right up toward the powerful, treacherous Angel with a fist drew back, intending on plummeting him or die trying. "You SHUT UP about my-"

"I . . . want to understand you."

Shinji, positioned right in front of the Angel, spoke in this soft, vulnerable voice that extinguished her rage like water on fire, leaving her stunned.

"I've been wanting to know more about you ever since that day we met," he continued on, "Asuka."

"Y-You . . ."

"But how can I understand you . . . if you don't say anything to me?" he asked, appearing genuinely agonized. "You don't say anything about what's really bothering you . . . You don't talk to me about anything . . ." Gradually, he came to gain that maniac desperate _fury_ she had caught glimpses back when they were in their EVAs battling Angels; it was a fury that, once unleashed, could make even him approach something like formidability. "How can I understand you when you block out me? It's IMPOSSIBLE!" He now was screaming in her face, and the girl found herself actually forced into taking a step back.

"Shinji . . ." she rasped, not knowing what else to say in face of the raw, undeniably genuine passion this boy-whom she had just written off as a confirmed pervert-was now displaying to her.

"Ikari-kun," Rei spoke up quietly then. "Did you try to understand Pilot Soryu?"

At that, Shinji's prior passion visibly dwindled, as he then lowered his head in this childish, sulking manner that would always, unfailingly, annoy Asuka. "I tried . . ."

"Idiot!" Seizing Shinji's moment of weakness like she would the weakness of an Angel opponent, Asuka hurried to put "the idiot Shinji" back in his (usually pathetic) place for her own peace of mind. "I _know_ about your jerk-off fantasies of me." At her reminding, the TV spontaneously powered on, showing the scene with the young lech taking advantage of her in the hospital.

As expected, Shinji crumbled at the reminder. Watching him tremble in shame under the others' gazes both thrilled and disgusted Asuka, who, even while knowing she was going too in dealing with someone who liked her-albeit in a sick way-pressed on.

"Go on." She drank in the shame-filled expression scrunching up his face like it was something at once tasty and disgusting. "Do it again like usual . . . I'll even stand here and watch." Having delivered the fatal blow, she then crossed her arms watching the red-faced boy, awaiting his inevitable crumbling.

Several things happened then. Knees buckling, Shinji's eyes rolled up as he collapsed backwards . . . and right into Kaworu's waiting arms. Rei was, of course, already by his side steadying him with gentle hands. Even Misato had since tossed Pen-Pen aside, and was up there hugging her charge to her ample chest in this motherly gesture. In no time at all, Ikari Shinji was clamored by this make-shift harem, and all was again made right with his world.

Yet still he was not satisfied.

"Asuka . . ." Eyes gazed over, he beckoned to her, shamelessly, pleadingly. "Please come to me; I need . . . I still need you . . . your help; I need-"

"SHUT UP!" shouted Asuka, stomping hard against on the floorboard and causing Shinji to jolt backwards . . . and dragged the group currently pampering him with physical comfort to the floor with him. "You really don't get it, do you, you idiot?"  
Shinji's expression, fearful and dull and very much confused, told her that he really didn't. "Asuka-" He was promptly cut off by the girl getting up and standing menacingly over him.

Eyes on Shinji, Asuka delivered each and every one of the following words like they were blows from a hammer: "If you can't be mine alone, then I don't need you!"

She saw Shinji's eyes widening, as though he actually got what she was so plainly stating. His reply however, revealed that he really did not: "Then, be nice to me . . ." he said, gesturing at his love-giving entourage as though asking her to follow their example.

Amidst the rising of Asuka's blood pressure, the scene around them again began to change . . .

* * *

 **To be continued . . . ?**


	5. Chapter 5

NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

 **Note:** Much thanks to Seeking Professional Help, Iuvenal and 100flyking for their continued reviews!

 **Chapter 5**

* * *

 _'Well, look how the mighty has fallen.'_

Straining to turn his head from where he laid powerless on the cold ground of the Terminal Dogma, Ikari Gendo, currently missing his right arm, now saw, to his mild surprise, someone he thought he would never see again, not even in Instrumentality.

"Naoko."

 _'Not the one you're looking forward to seeing again at this time, I suppose?'_ Stepping up on high heels, the ghost of the woman who was his lover – whom he had used and then killed to further his own agenda – now regarded him with dark mirth in her eyes. _'You've certainly outdone yourself, Commander, ensnaring not just me, but also my daughter, all to further your mad scheme to sacrifice the world and get Yui-san back.'_

"I see the anti-AT field Lilith has been releasing has already reached pre-impact levels for the dead to show up like this," murmured Gendo, noting the visual clarity of her form. "Then, have you come to me for revenge?"

 _'Revenge? You think too little about us Akagis, Commander.'_

"Ritsuko," he acknowledge the presence of the Akagi daughter without turning towards her. "So, the two of you have managed to find and hold on to each other within the nothingness of the Collective Consciousness within Lilith's Seed Body. That's good." "Tell me, now that the battle's been won and lost, for what are we meeting at this twilight moment?"

Ritsuko's red lips curled in a smirk. _'We're here to make straight the way for the Final Messenger to make contact with mankind.'_

"The final messenger? But didn't he-"

"Death and life carry equal meaning to one such as I."

Eyes widening behind his glasses, Gendo glanced up and at the pale, boyish figure now standing over him, with his shoe-clad feet to either sides of his head.

"You . . ."

"Greetings, Father-san." Tabris, looking as physical as he was in life, smiled thinly down upon him. "Thank you for keeping my embryo form awake with the nourishment of your own flesh and blood: I have learned much about the Lilin's plans for Instrumentality through you."

" . . . I see," murmured Gendo, putting the pieces together. "The embryo I've attached to myself for safekeeping had acted as a bugging device, allowing you to anticipate my every move since early on."

"Not just 'your' every move," clarified Tabris. "The awakened embryo had erected for me a field encompassing the entire planet, allowing my consciousness to reach all corners of Earth – including all locations of SEELE's respective hideouts. Nothing occurring under the Sun and the Moon can escape my consciousness: we came to gain awareness over the entirety of Lilin's machinations all thanks to you."

" 'We'?"

 _'Tabris, who bears Adam's essence, has harbored within himself the population of all human souls deceased since the Second Impact.'_ explained Naoko, who stood with the late Doctor Katsuragi and Kaji Ryoji flanking her on either sides. _'We've all done in our part in guiding the Seed with our counsel, thus ensuring that the Final Messenger will succeed in his goal to part take in Instrumentality when the time comes.'_

"I see." Gendo cast his gaze on the girlish form now standing at his feet. "And you're fine with Tabris' will potentially overriding yours from within the Collective Consciousness, Rei?"

"However crafty my Brother, he loves Ikari-kun," replied Ayanami Rei I+II+III. "This makes him far worthier of my trust him than you, Commander."

"Thus how it all comes tumbling down." Gendo laughed then, a dark, hopeless sound. "The Seventeenth Angel is to be the one to rule over the Third Impact –- all with the support of Mankind's deceased members. What a fitting end for the corrupt Humanity."

Tabris's red eyes upon him were chiding but gentle. "I will not end the Lilin race. Rather, I intend to have it evolve beyond its current limiting state."

"Do what you want, to me or to the world; just get it over with," sighed the NERV Commander in weary resignation. "I've lost, I've lost everything that matters to me, and the guilt is all mine."

"I ask only that you watch this."

At Tabris's voice, an apparition of sorts appeared in front of his eyes, showing the man the image of someone he was ill-prepared to face at this very moment.

"Shinji . . ." Gendo's eyes widened at the sight of his son, currently engaged in some kind of confrontation against Pilot Soryu. "Is this . . ."

"The most important scene from amongst the vast multitudes occurring within the Collective Consciousness," said Tabris, his voice husky with reverence. "This here, is the scene where the Messiah and his Mate shall begin their tumultuous descend into the inmost cave."

* * *

"Nice . . . to you?"

They now were in a train car, its interior so heavily basked under the sunset, that the atmosphere looked almost ominously murky –- much like the interior of a stale EVA Plug at the end of its life-support mode.

Asuka chuckled then (a demented, witch-like sound to even her own ear), right in Shini's face, before pointing a finger directly at the one currently embracing him from behind.

"You mean . . . 'nice' to you, like that Angel who just blew you knowing I was watching?" she asked, watching Shinji's hopeful expression dim. Shameless, the Angel's eyes merely narrowed with dark mirth at her words.

"Or, maybe, like 'Mama' Misato, who fucked Kaji right in front you?"

The grown woman actually had the good grace to look embarrassed by the girl's words.

"Better yet, like Wonder Girl, who has gone from being your Father's doll to being yours?"

"I'm nobody's doll," stated Rei, displaying more of a cool, threatening vibe than Asuka had ever detected from her. Heady from anger, Asuka ignored it, instead focusing on Shinji alone.

" **I** , am the only one who'd even bother to tell you anything like it is," she growled at the traumatized-looking boy, uncaring of the tears now streaming down her own face. "I'm _plenty_ nice to you, you _sick **freak!**_ "

"We're nice to you," chorused the "harem" at that exact same moment.

"LIARS!" Shinji broke free from the girls –- plus the Angel - with an abrupt and explosive violence. "All of you - you're all just hiding behind a mask of a smile!" Asuka saw, to her surprise, how Shinji was largely directing his anger at the Angel, whose pale nose-tip he now was pointing at. "Even you – you're using your nicety and my needs to confuse me!" The Angel's red eyes widened at his accusation.

"Shinji-kun . . ."

"You're keeping things ambiguous just to keep me - the real me - at a distance!" cried Shinji, anger further highlighted by his red-stained features in this gloomy evening train as he now gestured at everyone –- including Asuka –- present. "All of you are doing the same thing to me!"

"Because the truth hurts us all," spoke Rei, actually sounding melancholic. "Because having to face the person behind the façade you know them by is too daunting for our imperfect hearts."

"Ambiguity only makes me insecure," whimpered Shinji, suddenly seeming fearful. "I never really knew what everyone really thinks of me, I never knew what to expect when I have to make contact with other people, and I . . . and I . . . "

"And so you run away," muttered Asuka, regarding him with some actual empathy at this point. "But that-"

"That's just an excuse," Rei cut in before she could have basically said the same thing, much to Asuka's annoyance.

"Everyone faces that same hurdle, Shinji-kun." Misato watched him with crossed arms. "You're not unique in facing this same dilemma."

"But it makes me so scared . . ." trembled Shinji, as though he was some cornered, agitated animal, "I'm so scared that the day will come when I won't be needed by the people around again. It makes me uneasy! It worries me! Hey!" He reached out towards the others. "Let me hear your voice! Interact with me! _Care about **me!**_ "

By this point, Asuka found that she no longer knew how to deal with this "no-buffer" Shinji at all. The others likely shared the same sentiment, as they too watched him without moving. The boy appeared further distressed by lack of response.

"Someone . . . anyone . . .?"

"Even if they do what you ask, it cannot help the person you are right now."

All turned at the new voice to see a beautiful, shorthaired woman donning a lab coat over casual attire, currently stepping up along the train car and towards the gang. Asuka noted with great trepidation how she looked almost exactly like an older, non-albino Rei.

The woman stopped in front of Shinji, who gawked at her appearance.

"Ma . . . ma . . . ?" he asked, limp fingers loosening around the cross pendant he held.

 _That woman is Shinji's mother, Ikari Yui?! The woman for whom the Commander had dragged NERV and the whole world into the madness of Instrumentality?_ Asuka turned towards Misato –- her info source for all things to do with the Human Instrumentality Project –- with a questioning look. Misato nodded back in the affirmative.

"Shinji," Yui watched her son with saddened eyes, "the problem of your fearful uncertainty lies with you." Shinji appeared shocked by her statement.

"But, Mama-"

"Though we've been apart for so long, your battles in Unit 01 have given me full knowledge over you. Shinji, you are fundamentally afraid of others, and there lies the root of your problem. You fear the shapeless, invisible barriers that separate people. This fear makes you do hurtful things to others and to yourself . . . just like how it is with your father."

Shinji seemed outraged by his mother's last line "I'm NOTHING like that-"

"Shinji." Yui again cut her son off, more firmly this time. "It's only when you've learned to withstand the pain of interaction can you truly appreciate the warmth of others." Her voice then softened with gentleness. "Only then can you overcome the curse of Lilin existence: the curse of Hedgehog's Dilemma."

Shinji might have voiced out some excuse or another for his inability to withstand contact from others; Asuka could not be sure, so stunned was she by the appearance of another figure now coming up toward them.

"F-Father . . .?"

Langley, whom Asuka had always remembered to be an immaculately groomed - almost uppity - man in life, now could be seen crawling on all fours in disheveled sleep clothes. Upon meeting her gaze, he pounced her, much like how an enthusiastic dog would at its owner.

"I'm so sorry, so sorry, my little doll . . ." he babbled on, bug-wide eyes staring past his daughter's horrified face, unseeingly. "Mama was right: Papa was always too busy breeding the bitch to take care of his little doll . . ." His fingers dug painfully into her arms, his spittle spraying her on her face. "Papa is a horny dog who can't keep it in his pants . . . Papa don't deserve to be called a man . . . Papa don't deserve his little doll . . ."

Asuka had no idea when exactly had she started screaming, nor when did she eventually manage to stop. By the time she came back to her senses, she was back at Misato's apartment, slumped forward at the table, spent.

". . . no . . ." She murmured under her breath, repeated, as though she was reciting some unknown mantra. " . . . no . . ."

"I want to help you in some way . . . I want to be with you forever.

Shinji's hesitant voice, followed by his hesitant footsteps, had Asuka – already tittering on the edge – growing rigid.

"No," she rasped, voice still shot from her prior screaming. "Don't do anything. Don't you goddamn come near me anymore. All you ever do is hurt me."

Heedless of her clear warning, the boy leaned over towards her, shoving that gullible mug of his right beside her face.

"Asuka, help me!" begged the ever needy, ever self-centered boy, to whom everything was ultimately about _him_. "Mama . . . Mama said some really troubling things to me . . . something about Hedgehog's Dilemma, and how I'm a victim of it. But I-I think it can be fixed." His blue eyes on her were twinkling with desperate hope. "If I come to you, you can help me feel better. So help me . . . you're . . . you're the only one who can!"

That line - so obviously false - pushed Asuka right over the edge.

"You _LIAR . . ._ " she glared sideways and at this stupid, selfish, deceitful boy who _dared_ to seek solace from her in the guise of offering it. "To a desperate, loserly horned dog like you, literally ANYBODY will do!" Watching him cringe from fear, she got up from the table and started advancing upon this unwitting target of her frustration, forcing him backwards.

"You're afraid of Misato and the First... and of your mother and father, too!"

"Asuka-"

"You're only using me as an escape - because that's the easiest way not to get yourself hurt! And you really only want me for sex, don't you, you perv?"

"Please!" Shinji pleaded, desperate and unbecoming. "Please, help me!"

"You've never really liked anyone! You're all you have, but you've never even learned to like yourself, you self-centered piece of _SHIT!_ " Asuka shoved him then, hard, watching with contempt as his scrawny frame crumpled to the floor, taking the coffee pot with him and getting splashed by its scalding, steaming contents.

"Pathetic . . ." she hissed, choosing the word she knew would hurt him most.

Jolting –- not unlike how a worm convulsed upon getting stepped on - Shinji started slowly pushing himself back up with much apparent pain.

"Help me. . . Somebody . . . Somebody help me . . ." Head hung low, his voice nonetheless came to rise in volume . . . and sharpness. "Help me... Help me... Me... Help ME!"

Eyes hidden behind thick bangs, Shinji suddenly grabbed onto the table, and flung it aside with a bestial violence that would have daunted Asuka, had she been any less angry herself.

"Don't leave me alone! Don't _abandon me!_ Don't **KILL ME!** " he screeched flinging a chair directly at Asuka's feet, missing her toes by mere centimeters .

Asuka did not dodge.

Instead, she merely _watched_ this disgusting perverted excuse of a human being panting from his boiling rage, using her silence to draw out this painful moment of uncertainty and desperation for him. Until finally . . .

"No," she replied at last, delivering that cruelest blow.

For a moment, Shinji merely remained still, before his hands were to suddenly shot forward clasping around her throat, strangling her.

". . . no . . ." she continued on, somehow still managing to speak despite feeling her throat getting squeezed painfully shut (maybe it had to do with the nature of this strange place?), " . . . rather die than have anything to do with you . . ."

She heard, from where she was staring up at the ceiling, the sound of Shinji's agonized, hopeless crying, and found herself comforted by his despair and her own pain –- a combination powerful enough to keep even that painful knowledge of what had become of both her parents at bay.

". . . harder . . ." she urged him, all the while hating how similar her needy voice now sounded to Misato's "bedroom purring". ". . . do it harder-" And she stopped.

Where the ceiling once was now existed a wall of hexagonal shapes bearing various scenes, just like how the walls of the Room of Guf was like from a while ago. The only difference now was that the countless people within these countless scenes all had stopped whatever they should have been doing within their own worlds. Instead, every one of these individuals were staring at her and Shinji with rapt eyes, as though the Children - one still throttling the other - were leads on a live stage, and these people the engrossed audience.

"Keep going, Soryu-san!" the Angel called out to her from one of the scenes - one where the Commander could be seen in the background. "Don't lose that tension now - the World is watching!"

* * *

Not quite drowned out by the apocalyptic screaming coming though the apparition, the conversation between man and Angel continued on as followed:

"You're telling me that I'm not the only one privy to this . . . viewing?"

"This moment is currently getting broadcasted across the minds of all individuals held within the seed."

"For what purpose have you done this?" asked Gendo, his voice marred by a noticeable tremor as he observed Shinji's continued suffering in the near afterlife.

"For the sake of inducing resonance in the minds of many."

"Resonance . . . ?"

"The Lilin heart will only be moved by that which resonates with it. So what better way is there to make people feel for Shinji-kun, than to expose to them his bare-naked suffering?"

Gendo jolted at finally understanding what the Angel was trying to do. "Tabris, you're trying to . . ."

"The goal is to set Shinji-kun up as the Hedgehog Messiah in the hearts of the entire Lilin population," the Angel offered his exposition plainly. "Through his own suffering, the Messiah shall discover the solution to deal with that suffering; through watching this discovery through the crossing of Lilin hearts, the solution found shall bring salvation for all."

"What if . . ." Gendo paused briefly to blink back a sudden wet stinging in his eyes, " . . . what if my son is to fail in realizing that solution?"

"He will not fail," stated the Angel, sounding confident despite the maddening despair entrapping the Shinji shown within the scene. "The boy whom selfish old men had used and abused as a mere pawn shall rise and become the legend he's meant to be all along."

* * *

 **End Chapter 5** (could be a while before I can update again)


	6. Chapter 6

NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

 **Note:** First off, an apology for the long lapse between updates. Thanks goes to Lunar_L AO3 and Progdor for getting me to resurrect this fic after its long hiatus. This is a rather rushed effort, but I hope it will still please ;-)

* * *

"First Pen-Pen . . . now Kensuke-kun too . . ."

Stepping back from the amber drenched pile of clothes - all that was left of her school friend - Horaki Hikari ended up bumping against the hospital bed, the mere impact of which forced fearful tears out of her widened eyes.

"It'll be okay, Hikari," murmured the one on the bed, the quiet voice followed by the speaker's firm, warm grip upon her hand.

"Toji!" Turning towards her recovering boyfriend in desperate need of his reassuring presence, Hikari was then treated to a sight that had her blood running cold. "Toji . . ."

Suzuhara Toji, already seriously injured from his bout with EVA, now was _dissolving_ from below the waist like ice upon fire - to the point that his newly attached artificial leg now was slipping off.

"It's okay," insisted the melting boy, appearing strained by the mere act of speaking. "Kensuke . . . Pen Pen, they've gone back ahead of us, that's all." His hand, slick and hot, tightened around hers. "We're all going back."

"Going . . . back?"

"To Shin-man . . . the Red Devil . . . everyone we've left behind when Tokyo-3 became unlivable. But now . . . now that they need help more than ever, we're . . . we have to . . ."

Listening on, Hikari found her own trepidation gradually easing despite the sheer nonsensical quality of the words. It could be because it was Toji's saying them; Toji, whom she liked, loved and bonded with; Toji, whom she had pledged to stay with even after his crippling injuries; Toji, whose hand now was _merging_ into hers via some strange mechanism incomprehensible to her fourteen-year old mind . . .

"Toji-" she started, but stopped as the boy pulled her towards himself. " . . . Toji . . ."

"They've come," said Toji, his eyes staring off to behind her.

"Who-" Having followed his gaze, Hikari froze at seeing Rei, Major Katsuragi and Kaji-san standing together with what looked like a gathering of NERV personnel; amongst them stood Kensuke, holding Pen Pen and looking to be as dazed as she currently felt. "Wha . . . ?"

"It's time," stated Toji, tightening his arms around his girlfriend. "Hikari, stick with me-"

And the young couple's physical forms collapsed in twins splatters of LCL, leaving behind two sets of intimately entangled clothing upon the drenched hospital bed.

* * *

"Opposites attract."

"Opposing wills clash."

The pair watched, with glinting red eyes, the vast expanse of glowing, mobile dots currently sharing in their sanctuary; certain pairs were moving towards each other as though drawn, while others drift further apart as though repelled.

"Opposite personalities, once they interact, result in opposing wills," observed Rei, learning with the diligence of a good pupil.

"Yet attraction between interacting individuals will ultimately result in them clashing," stated her Seed Brother - he who bore the Soul of Adam - currently coaching her on the finer intricacies of human behavior. "Thus the Lilin Race's eternal dilemma."

Lifting a pale hand, he picked from within the fluorescent bunch one specific soul of utmost importance to the two of them; a somebody who was - like Brother had said - was fragile like glass.

"Hey." Pretty pale face soft with cherishment, Brother spoke to this precious someone in a voice like velvet over wind. "What's wrong, Shinji-kun?"

"Nobody understands me," mumbled Ikari-kun's volatile spirit, his appearance - as seen within the glowing globe - changing rapidly between that of an angsty teenager and a crying child as per how he imagined himself to be in his heart.

Having been complimented to her full consciousness, Rei, now geared with a better understanding of how people are, found herself both saddened and frustrated by Ikari-kun's current sorry state.

"You don't understand anything," she said, trying to use reason to save her one and only friend from his self-inflicted torment. "You're hurt by people who are really trying to understand you-"

" _This_ is what this SEELE organization controlling NERV wants for the world, right?" asked Ikari-kun, cutting her off (while revealing how he had since become privy to the top secret info through the Collective Consciousness' mechanism). "I thought this is supposed to be a world without unpleasantness... without uncertainty." He was now seen tearing at his hair/slumping forward in a chair/curled on the ground/flat on his back in an agonized manner. "If not . . . then what were those pains everyone got put through even for?!"

To that, Rei shook her head, even while knowing he - so entrenched within his raging emotions and painful memories - was blind to her gesture. "You're over-simplifying things, thinking that everyone else is just like you. You're meek yourself, and so you reject all those more aggressive than yourself during human interaction."

As though reacting to her voice -– which she knew was but one out of many he was currently hearing from within the Collective -– the numerous fragmented versions Ikari-kun started fusing into one: Ikari Shinji, fourteen year old pilot of Unit 01, slowly uncoiling from where he was curled up at the seat of his cockpit.

" . . . so it's my fault?" asked the boy, staring down upon the stigmata marking his palms as though in morbid fascination. "My fault that people will not be nice to me? That I end up alone?"

"All Lilins fear of the pains of contact to varying degrees." Brother's gentle voice lowered, turned solemn. "Only those who can triumph over this fear get to be nourished by the warmth of companionship." His red eyes came to harden. "Shinji-kun, you have to understand - there is no way to get around this, no gains without pains-"

" _TRAITOR!_ " Berserk, much like how he was during his more difficult battles in Unit 01, Ikari-kun now was pouncing at the barrier of his soul globe's confines as though trying to attack Brother. "You forced me to kill you just so you can get to control Instrumentality, didn't you? You made me a murderer just to get what you want, _DIDN'T YOU?!_ "

Brother, despite being beyond physical harm, recoiled under the blunt of Ikari-kun's accusation. "Shinji-kun-"

"You've _betrayed_ me!" shouted Ikari-kun, having none of it. "You've betrayed my feelings!"

 _'Betrayed . . . just like me,'_ thought Rei, thinking back to the hurt she felt when she finally realized how the Commander she admired had been using her as a disposable tool to further his own agenda –- a hurt that eventually prompted her to retaliate against him with her own betrayal. Having suffered the same, she knew Ikari-kun's anguish like she knew her own. "You've misunderstood from the start," she nonetheless said, not wanting Ikari-kun to use self-pity as an excuse to run away. "Brother did what he did not trying to hurt, but to help you."

Her words appeared to have reached Ikari-kun, who stopped railing against Brother, and instead focused his widened eyes upon her.

"Help . . . me?" asked the boy.

"To get over your fear of human interaction," clarified Rei. "Instrumentality, under Brother's guidance, becomes the process to end the Hedgehog's Dilemma plaguing humanity." As she spoke, she noticed Brother growing downcast from beside her; she focused her attention on Ikari-kun. "You felt betrayed because you've simply assumed his intention without asking."

"Even you, Ayanami?"

For a moment, Rei merely blinked in incomprehension, before the true implications of Ikari-kun's words sank in. "Ikari-kun-"

"Even you would not side with me now?" Ikari-kun's eyes - cloudy with torment - bore into hers like drills. "I thought . . . back when you sacrificed yourrself to save me, that you would always be on my side. But I was wrong, wasn't I?"

"Ikari-kun . . ." And, before Rei could continue on, tears escaped her eyes, much to her own shock. The last she had shred tears, it was when she first recognized her own loneliness. This time though . . . "Am I . . . hurt? From making contact with Ikari-kun?"

"Yes, this is also you," murmured Brother, addressing Ikari-kun in the tone of one speaking to himself. "The part of you camouflaged beneath your nicety: that cowardice-based vindictiveness with which you guard yourself. It can, however, hurt only those who try to get close to you."

 _'Just like a hedgehog and its thorns,'_ thought Rei. And, just like that, the hurt she felt from Ikari-kun's hostility lessened, as she remembered her current goal: to help Ikari-kun –- and by extension, everyone –- overcome their crippling fear of interaction.

"It's you fault," muttered Ikari-kun, directing his displeasure at Brother. "You're the one who have forced me to reveal the whole of myself, baring my ugliness for the world to see."

"My bad." Brother shrugged, hapless, before again donning his broad grin. "But . . . even knowing the whole of you, I still love you, Shinji-kun."

"Liar," spat Ikari-kun, refusing to be placated. "You and Rei and Asuka and Father and everyone . . . you're all just manipulating me via ambiguous words and on-the-surface kindness, all for your own gains." He lowered his face while again curling up wormlike unto himself. "Nobody wants to be with me for real. Everyone should just die."

Brother's grin disappeared. "Is this . . . what you really mean? That the Lilin Race you have protected all along as an EVA Pilot should just die?"

Sullen, Ikari-kun remained resolute. "Yes."

Rei, somehow stung by his words, cut in once more: "Then, what were those battles you've been fighting for?" Silence met her question; she remained undeterred. "What are those hands that burned themselves while prying open my entry plug for?"

Ikari-kun's downcast gaze fell upon his marred, upturned palms. "These hands can only do what other people want them to do." The aforementioned hands clenched into fists. "In the end, nobody cares whether I exist or not. This will not change, because everyone is selfish. So, everyone should just die-"

And, before he could go on, Rei had merged his soul globe into her own individual conscience, closing what distance once separating the two at the expense of blocking out Brother and the rest of the Collective Consciousness.

Ikari-kun tensed up at the intimate, violating intrusion. "Ayanami . . ."

"Ikari-kun." Rei, now directly within Unit 01's cockpit - his perceived world - clasped her own hands upon his. "Your heart went out to me back when I did not even know what sadness means." Avoiding her gaze – likely more passionate than he had ever seen from her - Shinji tried to back away, but was blocked by his seat. "If you are going to close up yourself now, right when the people in your life need you the most . . . Then, what is that heart for?" she asked pressing ar palm directly over his heaving chest.

" . . . I can't." muttered Shinji, whom she knew to be crying even with his face turned stubbornly away from her. "I can't stand you or Kaworu-kun or any of the others . . . Everyone is so _disgusting_ . . . and, and I suppose am too." He let out a choked sound that straddled the line between laughter and crying. "That's right . . . I should just die, too."

Rei would have slapped him then, had she not since learned from prior experience the futility in such employing such an act on someone like Ikari-kun; no, something more to-the-point, more cruel, would be needed to change his stance. "If people disgust you, then why are you here, now, inside an EVA's cockpit?"

Ikari-kun jolted at her question. "Just now . . . Asuka was fighting . . . and Mama-"

"You have been piloting for a long time now," stated Rei. "Back then, did you not decide to become an EVA pilot because you did not wish to see me go into battle in my injured state?" She put up a video playback of their first meeting at NERV, then manually turned Ikari-kun's head forcing him to face the display screen. "I was a stranger to you, and yet you cared enough about my well-being to take up the dangerous task of piloting. If you truly dislike the presence of others, then why did you care about me, back then?"

"Ayanami-"

"If you truly dislike others, then why were crying, back then?"

Another video came on, this one showing Ikari-kun as a young child at the train station, crying with a large travel bag next to him.

Tears betrayed the Ikari-kun of here and now, he who clearly recognized the painful scene. Rei, watchful of his reaction, pressed on with hopes of getting her point across:

"Can you truly deny in you heart that you wanted to connect with people - with the Commander, with me, with Soryu, with Brother, and by extension, other people as well?"

"Ayanami." Drawing a trembling breath, Ikari-kun then surprised Rei when he suddenly grabbed onto her hands in firm, desperate grip. Is it okay for me to be here?"

Rei, still green to human interaction, remained silent as she was puzzled by his words.

"Is it okay for me to stay here as Ikari Shinji, as the Pilot of EVA Unit 01, as a NERV employee, as a student of Tokyo-3 High School?" clarified Ikari-kun in a hurried tone, as though desperate for her answer. "Ne, Ayanami . . .is it okay for me to call this a place I can belong to?"

Before Rei could offer any adequate reply, however, a change had came over their surroundings. It appeared that Ikari-kun's heightened self-awareness had him returning into physical form right inside the actual cockpit of Unit 01. The Unit's display, still operational, revealed its current high altitudes by showing an outer space view of Japan's distinctive landscape, now disfigured by a macabre gape. Meanwhile, a massive globe, orbited by aerial white giants, hovered high above from their point of view. It appeared as though they were ascending towards it at a disorienting speed.

"Ah . . . Japan . . . and the Geofront, the NERV Centre . . ." rasped Shinji, "Everything . . . everything that allows me to be EVA Pilot Ikari Shinji I was is now gone . . . destroyed, because I did not cherish them enough?" His nails, blunt and uncut, dug into Rei's flesh (as she imagined she still had them), inciting phantom pain. "Is that why . . . I've lost everything that matters to me? Because I . . .?"

"Ikari-kun . . ."

"There's no longer anywhere for me to even _GODDAMN RETURN TO!_ "

Ikari-kun's subsequent screaming - which effectively blocked off all further attempts from Rei to reach him - lasted throughout the Black Moon's union with Lilith's flesh, after which nature took its course, as Instrumentality's mechanism started to affect all lives over the rapidly reddening Earth . . .

 **. . . to be continued?**


End file.
